Cattle 1853 - Lewis Family Farm

SHORT-HORNS. 127
by agreement, Mr. Colling was to have the bull calves, and the Colonel
to retain the heifers. One dropped a heifer, and the other a
bull calf, in 1792; the latter, by the bargain, was Mr. Colling's.
He was kept a bull until about a year old. Johanna, (o very moderate
cow,) got by the Lame bull, (o very moderate one,) not having
bred for two years, was, in 1793, turned to run with this young bull
he got her in calf, and was then castrated and fed as a steer, and
was never used to any other cow. In 1794 Johanna dropped a bull
calf, the Grandson of Bolingbroke, one fourth Galloway. If this
cross had been made to improve the short-horns, would Mr. Colling
have used his poorest cow, old Johanna, to do it with ? Old Phoenix
produced Favorite in Oct. 1793, and had no calf in 1794, nor
1795, and, during all that time, was bulled by Bolingbroke and other
bulls of the pure blood, until, as a last hope, she was turned into the
straw-yard in the winter of 1795-96, to run with this Grandson of
Bolingbroke, and he got her in calf; and she in the autumn of 1796
dropped the cow, Lady. Mr. Colling never used this Grandson of
Bolingbroke to any other cow. Lady's first calf was Washington.
Mr. Colling used him to only three or four cows one season, and
these produced nothing of any particular value. He was used by
Mr. Colling no more ; and he never used any other bull out of her
or her daughters. The alloy in his hands was confined to Lady, her
daughters, and the produce of her daughters. He never suffered
that blood to run into his Daisy tribe, his Duchess tribe, nor the rest
of his Lady Maynard tribe.
This alloy family was always extraordinarily deficient in milk, and
at the sale in 1810, giving little milk, were most remarkable for their
high condition, and this sold them well.
The family of Lady, her daughters, and the produce of her
daughters, numbered thirteen at the sale of Mr. Colling, in 1810,
and were far more numerous than any other. No other family numbered
over Jive. The alloy family sold for 2082 guineas, and averaged
160 guineas; the Phoenix family, including Comet, averaged
491 g's., and without Comet averaged 237 g's. ; and the Daisy family
averaged 175 g's. The pure blood brought higher prices than
the alloy ; and in the leading families of the pure blood made higher
averages. No other family could make so great an aggregate.
At this day in England they have ceased to claim any merit for
the Galloway cross, and freely admit that it did no good, and that
when animals having it are good, they are so in spite of that cross,.
not in consequence of it; but/rowi their short-horn blood.
The most extraordinary sales of short-horns in modern days, were
those of the herds of Earl Spencer and Mr. Bates ; and these
breeders wholly rejected and avoided the Galloway alloy, as did Mr.
Mason, (the contemporary and intimate friend of Mr. Colling) from
whom Lord Spencer derived his cattle.
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